Episode 3: Tell the Cult Leader I’m Sorry
Gwangmyeong Left Envoy’s face twisted bitterly.
“We normally just call it the Sacred Relic. How did you even learn the name Cheon-ok (Heavenly Jade)?”
“Did you really think I spent three days and nights doing nothing but running?” I snorted. “I ate, I took a dump, I recited a poem or two, tortured some of your men, took a nice little boat ride… made very productive use of my time.”
Gwangmyeong Jwasa shot a glare over his shoulder at his subordinates.
“You couldn’t endure a little torture?”
“They didn’t know exactly what it was,” I went on. “Only that it was important. I figured I should at least know what I’m dying for.”
Gwangmyeong answered in a low voice.
“…Gwangma, that is a special yeongyak—an elixir made for the Cult Leader alone. If anyone else takes it, their limbs will melt off. Don’t even dream of using it. It was incredibly difficult to make. We must recover it.”
“Do you kiss your own ass with that lying mouth?” I asked. “Do I look like some innocent lady from the Namgung clan? Or one of those Baekri girls who swoons at the sight of a handsome face? You perverted bastard.”
“I’m telling you the truth,” he insisted. “Because the Cult Leader is the one to ingest it, we call it the Sacred Relic. Believe me.”
“Strange,” I mused. “If it’s an elixir, shouldn’t your precious old Cult Leader have taken it before going into seclusion?”
“There are… reasons,” he muttered. “Even for the Cult Leader’s training, there is an order.”
“How was it made?” I asked. “This isn’t some naturally formed treasure. It’s obviously something you manufactured with ma-gong (demonic arts).”
“If I tell you, will you hand it over?”
I studied his eyes instead of answering.
“No.”
I already knew enough of the Demonic Cult’s atrocities to make a guess.
Besides, the light within the Heavenly Jade kept shifting—like extreme yin and extreme yang swirling together. Depending on the temperature, on the sunlight, the color continuously changed.
If I had to describe it, it looked like a taiji symbol.
In ma-gyo terms: a reversed taiji.
An elixir that contained taiji itself—that meant it was no ordinary medicine.
If this ended up in the Cult Leader’s hands, the destruction of the jianghu wouldn’t be surprising at all.
Damn it… the Martial Alliance really ought to give me some kind of Hero Award. Bastards.
I stated my conclusion out loud.
“Ah, I get it now. I really am a genius,” I said. “Let me guess—this is why you’ve been raiding sects and clashing with the Martial Alliance so often. Somehow, you’ve been extracting the essence of living martial artists and pouring it into this thing. It must not have been easy. You’d need both extreme yin and extreme yang, perfectly balanced.”
As I spoke, I understood the Cult Leader’s intention.
“The one who takes it needs an eum-yang jiche—a perfectly balanced yin–yang body. Or at least a dantian already adjusted to hold equal parts extreme yin and extreme yang. Then the effect would be greater. That’s why he went into seclusion, isn’t it? Did I get anything wrong? Or was he planning to use it after performing some body-replacement technique?”
After all, taking the elixir in a freshly swapped body would be even more effective.
Gwangmyeong Jwasa actually smiled as he listened.
“I thought you were just a stupid madman…”
“Flattered,” I said.
“Think what you like. Even if you know the truth, it won’t be worth more than your life.”
“That may be true,” I admitted.
“You’re not an eum-yang jiche anyway,” he said. “Hand it over.”
“If the Cult Leader eats this,” I said, “there won’t be a single equal left under heaven. He’s already annoyingly strong. How much stronger does he intend to get? I can’t let that happen. This is the lonely path of the hyeopgaek—the wandering hero.”
I was joking, but he didn’t laugh.
“…”
This is why I’ll never get along with the Demonic Cult.
He kept staring at me, clearly afraid that if he attacked, I’d throw myself off the cliff.
Honestly, I didn’t want to fall either.
What kind of idiot likes cliffs? Unless there’s some miraculous fortune waiting at the bottom, no sane man jumps.
Which meant: the right move here was to do whatever would piss him off the most.
Already badly wounded, I didn’t think too long about it.
I tilted my head back and swallowed the Heavenly Jade.
Gulp.
As soon as it slid down my throat, his face turned deathly pale.
I smacked my lips. “Huh. Sweeter than I expected. Starts like a soft peach, finishes nice and refreshing. Did you mix peach in so the old Cult Leader could swallow it easily? Hahaha!”
The Left Envoy and his men all stared at me, eyes wide.
If I exaggerated, they all looked one step away from fainting.
Gwangmyeong pointed at me, stammering. “Y-you ate it?”
I put on a serious face.
“You said it was an elixir, you idiot. Elixirs are good for the body. May the old Cult Leader’s wrath fall squarely on your head. Don’t worry, your subordinates will report exactly what they saw. Unless, of course, you kill every one of them right now.”
The Left Envoy stamped his foot, screaming.
“You lunatic! That—!”
“Should I have left it for your master?” I asked. “Too late now. It’s already in my stomach. Burp…”
The moment the Heavenly Jade settled inside me, I felt… strange.
Not just from my own joke—the peach flavor was real. Uncomfortably real.
Then my body began to change.
I frowned and pressed a hand to my lower abdomen.
My dantian was splitting—being forced into two.
To the Demonic Cult’s eyes, my face must have been draining of blood.
Half of my inner energy was being converted to yang, the other half to yin—a bizarre sensation. It wasn’t even that painful, which only proved: Sacred Relic or not, it was certainly something powerful.
Gwangmyeong Jwasa ground his teeth. “Kill him! No—capture him alive. I’ll grind him up and feed him to the Cult Leader myself.”
“Yes, sir!”
I raised a hand, grimacing as if I were about to say something profound.
“Wait! ‘Yes, sir’ my ass. I have something to say. My stomach feels… weird. Hold on. I might need to throw this back up.”
I stared at the Left Envoy with the gravest expression I could manage.
At the possibility I might spit it out, he lifted his hand sharply.
“Hold!”
He held his breath, watching me.
I continued, solemn. “My dantian…”
“What about it?” he demanded.
“Sometimes hot, sometimes cold,” I said. “Which means I’m probably about to have explosive diarrhea. This elixir doesn’t agree with my constitution.”
Right on cue, a thunderclap of gas ripped out of me.
The Demonic Cult disciples winced and slapped hands over their noses.
“…”
Gwangmyeong Jwasa covered his nose as well. “Just spit it out already.”
I pinched my own nose. “Stop whining like a child. And I never said I’d spit it out through my mouth. I need to… relieve myself. You all go on ahead. I am a man of decorum; I can’t let others watch me while I’m taking a dump.”
“…What?”
His own face was turning pale now. I watched him evenly.
“Tell the Cult Leader I’m sorry,” I said. “Later, he can come down and inspect my shit. Somewhere in there will be the answer he needs to become a ma-shin (Demon God). The greatest Cult Leader of all time—ascending to number one in the world thanks to holy excrement. And they’ll say: ‘The Mad Demon left behind the greatest shit in history.’ Legendary, isn’t it?”
Gwangmyeong Jwasa listened, expression growing more and more twisted, until finally his sanity snapped. He thrust a palm at me in rage.
Like hell.
I had no choice but to meet his strike with mine—using the palm technique of Golden Turtle Wandering Art (Geumgu Soyogong).
In the air between us, two massive palm imprints of qi collided.
KWAAAAAANG!
The Left Envoy was blasted backward at incredible speed. I, too, staggered several steps straight off the edge of the Thousand-Fathom Ravine.
Only then did I realize he’d cultivated a profoundly cold art.
So the bastard learned ice qi.
He was sent flying a little farther than I was, but my pride was still wounded.
Probably because my injuries were already severe.
Falling off a cliff hadn’t been part of the plan, so I was, frankly, alarmed.
But life never goes according to plan.
Even as I plummeted, watching the Demonic Cult recede above me, laughter burst from my chest.
“Wahahahaha!”
My laughter slammed into the ravine walls, echoing until it seemed to fill sky and earth.
Maybe the Heavenly Jade’s peach flavor was affecting my laugh, too.
In any case, Manjangae was deep.
I kept laughing loudly, and yet I was still falling.
My legs were fine, and the strange energy from the Heavenly Jade was writhing in my dantian. For someone who’d been chased half to death, I felt surprisingly energetic.
Still, this wasn’t according to plan.
Just before hitting the ground, I used Mad Wind One Laugh (Gwangpung Ilso) to cancel out the impact, spun three and a half times midair, and landed lightly on both feet.
Almost a perfect landing.
“Hehehe…”
I glanced up.
To my surprise, not just Gwangmyeong Jwasa, but even the low-ranking disciples who would definitely die from a fall like this were hurling themselves after me without hesitation.
They were the enemy, but seeing them leap en masse at a single word of command… it was almost impressive. I couldn’t help but clap.
“Wow… you crazy bastards.”
The Demonic Cult is truly the Demonic Cult.
Men who live and die on a single command. No wonder the Martial Alliance struggles to strike at their main stronghold.
“Still, about half of you are going to die with every bone in your body broken.”
Sure enough, screams filled the ravine as bodies smashed into cliffs and jagged rocks. Many died on impact.
Watching them die so pointlessly, I began to understand what the Left Envoy meant earlier when he said there was no one in the jianghu who didn’t fear the Cult Leader.
The Demonic Cult—Cheonma Shingyo, as they call themselves—is truly terrifying.
Then, suddenly, the sky full of falling cultists vanished.
Manjangae, the blue sky above, everything—turned to blinding white.
“Huh?”
What in the—
Everything my eyes could see was pure white.
There, floating alone in the air, stood a man—his face obscured by a strange radiance shining behind him.
For the first time in a very long time, I was stunned.
Who the hell is that?
In that instant, I knew: my life and death were entirely in this man’s hands.
Even the sound of wind had disappeared.
In an uncanny stillness, as if the world itself had stopped, the unknown man slowly descended toward the ground.
What kind of martial art is this?
To fall from that height with his hands clasped behind his back… unbelievable.
I glanced around. The bottom of Manjangae was completely bleached into white.
The man approached me, presence overwhelming, hands still folded behind him.
“To eat something containing so many spirits so casually,” he said. “You truly are insane.”
The moment I heard his voice, a shiver ran down my spine.
It held the detachment of someone who’d seen through the world, the confidence of a supreme martial artist, and the weight of unquestionable authority—all tangled together.
This man was on a different level.
“I may be crazy,” I replied, “but who are you, exactly?”
Only then could I see him clearly.
He wore the clothes of a jianghu man like me, but the style was long out of fashion—like he’d stepped out of an ancient painting of some peerless master.
Every top expert I’d ever met would probably struggle to stay calm in front of him.
I knew a lot about the strong ones of the jianghu, but this man… his very existence was a mystery. No one came to mind.
I spoke my thoughts aloud. “You really are… astonishing.”
I had never said something like that about anyone else.
It wasn’t just his martial strength. The fact that a man this powerful existed, and I hadn’t even heard of him—that alone was shocking.
He answered with a bored expression.
“I am rather impressive,” he said. “You’re doing well just staying conscious in front of me. Not bad. Still, why did you swallow the Heavenly Jade? That Cheon-ok is filled with the hunbaek—spirits—of countless masters. None of them have moved on. Understand so far?”
“Do you take me for an idiot?”
He stroked his chin, then went on.
“Those spirits, unable to pass on, will now cling to your own soul.”
“…Hm?”
“When you sleep, they’ll disturb your rest. When you eat, they’ll share the essence in your food. When you touch others, they may cling to them as well. And your inner energy will rage out of control.”
I picked out the useful part.
Oh. More inner energy. I like that.
He continued.
“You are now a living Heavenly Jade—and half ghost. You no longer have the option of living an ordinary life.”
“I’ve never lived an ordinary life,” I said.
“That much is obvious. You’ve suffered zou huo ru mo (inner-devil deviation) several times.”
“How did you know?” I asked.
“When you have time, pick up a mirror,” he said. “See if your eyes look normal. Such deviation always leaves a sickness of the mind.”
“Then what if the Cult Leader had taken the Heavenly Jade instead of me?” I asked. “I didn’t eat it because I wanted to. I ate it so he couldn’t.”
The man smiled faintly.
“So you swallowed it out of some twisted sense of goodwill?”
“Yes.”
It was true. Somehow, I felt like this man could see through lies, so there was no point in bluffing.
He sighed.
“It is true,” he said. “The Heavenly Jade goes against the natural order. If the Cult Leader had taken it, I would have erased him myself. Then I would have accepted the punishment for interfering in the mortal realm. But events have not gone as I expected.”
The affairs of the world are truly terrifying.
Even a man like this had been blindsided.
He went on.
“Those spirits must move on. Only then can their past lives be judged and their souls be sent to the proper realms. Many of them lived admirable lives. That cannot be ignored.”
“What am I supposed to do?” I asked. “You’re talking like I should hurry up and die so they can move on. That’s not going to happen. At least send me to the Cult Leader first. Let me drag that old bastard down with me. After I kill him, I’ll take my own life.”
He chuckled.
“Don’t try to be clever.”
“Caught that, did you? Sharp eyes.”
“So you hate the Cult Leader that much?”
“Do I even need to say it?”
“Why?” he asked.
“‘Why?’” I repeated. “He doesn’t see people as people. My lifelong wish is to beat him senseless. If he asked me why, I was going to give him just one answer.”
I raised a finger.
But the man spoke first, already knowing.
“Because he doesn’t see people as people?”
I met his gaze and nodded.
“That’s it. And that was the only reason I needed to want him dead.”
The man folded his arms, a faint smile on his lips.
“A good reason,” he said.
“A… good reason?” I echoed.
I stared at him. Strangely enough, I felt like I could talk to this man.
I could hardly believe it, but I suspected he was something close to a god.
He dropped his arms, sighed like a man resigning himself, then pointed at me.
“Lee Jaha…”
My eyes widened.
He knows my name?
“This is your last lifeline,” he said. “Never swallow a Heavenly Jade again. From here on, I’ll be serving my punishment and won’t be able to help you. Whatever happens, I’ll regard you with goodwill. This is the best I can offer—and the greatest blessing I can give. I bless you, Jaha.”
He extended a hand toward me.
For a moment, I wondered if I was about to die from his palm strike.
Given the situation, probably not.
So what the hell was this?
As I tried to make sense of it, light burst from his hand and engulfed me, wiping out my senses in a single instant.
Huh?
My consciousness was slipping away.
…
…
…
Am I dead?
It felt like my whole body was shattering, yet there was no pain.
Just before my awareness vanished, my soul whispered one last thing.
I don’t want to die yet.
Damn it all…
I haven’t even once… with a beauty…
Damn…!